The Rescued (5 page)

But he was. He came walking over from the generator shed just as they were pulling up. Isaac was putting up a good front, but Judith knew him too well to be fooled. He was hating every second of this party before it had even begun.

Her glance shifted to Joseph, and her breath caught in her throat. Joseph knew Isaac well, too. And Joseph knew exactly what his brother was feeling. Hurt and anger mingled in the boy's face before he could manage to hide them.

Judith realized she was holding her hand against her heart, as if she could keep it from bursting with pain. Surely, if she loved Isaac and Joseph enough, she could heal this rift between them. She needed to believe that, but every day it became less and less likely that she could.

J
oseph's
birthday party was drawing to an end, and as far as Isaac was concerned, that end couldn't come soon enough. Still, he had to admit that it hadn't been as painful as he'd thought it might be.

Judith probably deserved the credit for that. He knew she'd been keeping him busy, pulling him into one task or another, or insisting that he chat with each person there. He felt a tiny edge of resentment at being managed as if he were one of the kinder, but it had worked, so who was he to argue with it?

He'd done a good thing in marrying Judith—a very good thing. No man could ask for a better wife and mother. She'd taken on the responsibility of raising Joseph without a backward glance, something not every nineteen-year-old girl would do, that was certain-sure.

His gaze rested on her as she moved from one group to another seated in the backyard under the shade of the oak trees, making sure everyone had had plenty to eat and refilling lemonade
glasses. She still looked much as she had that day he'd taken her hand, standing in front of the ministers and the entire church district to make their promises. Her figure might be a tad curvier, but that was all to the good. Her thick brown hair, smoothed neatly back, would be filled with waves when she let it down at night, and her oval face was as serene as if she hadn't a thing in the world to worry about.

Isaac's train of thought stumbled. Why would she worry? But he knew she did, about Joseph, about the boys, about him, most likely. She wanted everyone to be happy, and sometimes that must seem like an impossible task.

“A fine meal, Isaac.” Onkel Simon clapped him on the back. He was followed by his oldest boy, Lige, a few years older than Isaac himself. He and Lige were nearly as close as brothers, as much time as they'd spent together growing up.

“You'd best tell Judith that,” he said. “I didn't do much except see that the boys set up chairs. She always makes a fuss over birthdays.”

“All women do, ain't so?” Lige said. “You should have heard the fuss about it when our James turned sixteen. You'd think no one had ever had a rumspringa before.”

“Rumspringa means letting go of the reins a bit,” Onkel Simon pointed out. “No mammi ever thinks it's time for letting her chicks out of her sight.”

Isaac's throat clenched. His mother hadn't been there to see what happened after he turned sixteen, because that was the night she died.

“Mammi might have been right at that.” Lige leaned against the fence post, tilting his hat to shield his eyes from the setting sun. Lige had his father's lean face and blue eyes, but his reddish
brown hair came from his mother. “That boy hasn't given us a moment's peace lately. If it's not one thing, it's another.”

“Like you didn't do any such thing when you were his age,” Isaac said. “Seems to me I remember a boy who about drove his mamm crazy because his haircut wasn't as stylish as he wanted it to be.”

Lige grinned. “I guess. But at least I wasn't asking for a cell phone.”

“Only because they didn't have them back then,” Isaac retorted.

“Ach, it's natural enough for a teenage boy,” Onkel Simon said. “Seems to me every teenager I see is talking away on one of those things.”

“That's exactly why I don't want him to have one. Of course he says that every single kid in his rumspringa gang has one except him.” Lige sounded as if his son was giving him as hard a time as he'd once given Onkel Simon.

“He'll settle down when he's ready to join the church.” Isaac wasn't sure how comforting that was, with five or six years, most likely, before young James came to that point. “We all did.”

“You just wait until Joseph is ready to start his rumspringa,” Lige warned. “He's fourteen already, and the years fly by fast. One minute they're sitting on your knee and the next you have to look up to talk to them. Remember how you felt at that age—”

Lige stopped abruptly, as if realizing a moment too late that he was on rocky territory.

Isaac felt his face freeze as he sought for words. “I should go help—”

Onkel Simon put a firm hand on his arm. “Lige didn't mean anything.”

“I know.” He made as if to pull his arm away, but his uncle didn't seem to be finished yet.

“You have a new home now.” Onkel Simon nodded toward the farmhouse. “A happy home, and it was built on the foundation of the home that used to be there. That's a wonderful gut way to use the past, Isaac. Not to forget, not to cling to. But to make a foundation for what's to come.”

Onkel Simon meant well. Isaac knew it. But he also knew he couldn't talk about it, especially not today of all days.

“Denke.” He pulled free without looking at his uncle's weathered face. “I must say good-bye to Judith's grandmother. I see they're almost ready to leave.”

He walked away steadily, trying not to let his face show his feelings. All that remained was to say all the good-byes and do the cleanup. Then this long day would be over. After a good night's sleep, tomorrow would be better.

As always, that job was easier to say than to do. People lingered, chatting, while the young ones chased each other around the yard. Only when the sun had nearly reached the ridge did folks start getting ready to leave in earnest. No one wanted to be driving a buggy home after dark if they could help it.

And then there was all the cleaning up to do. Despite the fact that folks helped, it took an eternity, it seemed, until the last dish had been put away.

Finally the family was alone in the house. While Judith put the boys to bed, Isaac finished up in the kitchen, feeling as if he'd been trampled by a runaway horse.

Judith returned quietly, and she gave him what he thought was an apprehensive glance. “Everyone's settled for the night. I just hope Levi isn't up with a bellyache after all he ate.”

“He'll be fine.” Isaac tried to sound normal. “I think I'll get to bed soon, too. We'll be up extra early to get the cows milked before it's time to leave for worship tomorrow.”

She nodded, her gaze still on his face. “Are you . . . are you all right?”

Isaac's jaw clenched. Like Onkel Simon, Judith meant well. They just didn't understand that he was handling the painful memories the only way he could.

“Fine,” he snapped, and then was sorry when he saw the hurt in her eyes. “I'm going up,” he added, trying to soften his tone, but it seemed to him that the hurt look followed him all the way upstairs.

Later, lying next to Judith in the double bed, he had to try deliberately to relax his muscles so that he could sleep. The windows were open to let in the night breeze, and the monotonous chirping of the crickets was soothing—almost as soothing as Judith's warm body lying next to him.

He turned his head silently to look at her. She lay on her side, as she always did, and a thick braid crossed her shoulder to shield the delicate curve of her breast. Her hand was partially curved in sleep, and her breathing was slow and even. Listening to it, he slid into sleep.

The next thing he knew, Judith was shaking him, calling his name. He jerked out of the dream, feeling the sweat on his face chill in the night air. He unclenched his fists, half fearing what Judith had seen and heard.

The nightmare was familiar even though he hadn't had it in years—of struggling through the smoke and flames, the floor hot under his bare feet, following the sound of the baby crying almost by instinct. He twisted against Judith's restraining
arms, shaking his head from side to side, sure he smelled the smoke again. The house—

“Isaac, it was a nightmare. Nothing but a nightmare. It's over now. You're safe. We're all safe.” Judith's hands clutched him as if she'd pull him bodily away from the dream.

“Ja,” he muttered. He drove his fingers through his hair. “Ja. Not real. Not now.”

“No, of course not now.” She ran her hands along his arms. “It was over long ago.”

Her words seemed to jangle in his ears, and he shook his head. “No. No. It's not over. Not for me.”

“Isaac, don't.” She sounded on the verge of tears. “What happened was terrible, but you must accept it.”

“I went for Joseph. He was crying, so I went for him.” The words felt as if they were ripped from his heart.

“You saved your little brother. He's alive because of you.”

She didn't understand. How could she?

“If I'd gone for Daad first, maybe we could have gotten everyone out.”

He felt Judith stiffen as she absorbed the words. “Don't, Isaac. Don't think of it that way. You don't know—”

He jerked away from her, rolling out of bed, his bare feet hitting the hooked rug next to it. Cool, not hot, but still, he couldn't pull free of the dream.

“Need some air.”

If he didn't get out in the fresh air, he'd choke. He bolted from the room, past the doors of the children's rooms. Grabbed the railing and stumbled down the stairs. Was it now, or was it years ago?

Across the kitchen, bumping into the table. Finally he
reached the door. He burst through it and out onto the porch, sucking in a long breath of the night-scented air, telling himself it was over. There was nothing wrong, not now.

It didn't help. He could still taste the acrid tang of fire.

No matter how far he ran, it wouldn't be far enough. He couldn't escape it. He never would.

•   •   •

Judith
sat on the backless bench in the Shuman family's barn the next morning, holding Noah against her and keeping her back straight through long practice. Rebecca was next to her in the row of young mothers, and there was comfort in having her cousin so near. Her thoughts should be on the main sermon, but instead they kept wandering to Isaac.

He was sitting opposite her in the men's section, with Levi and Paul on either side of him. Levi sat up straight, eager to prove that soon he'd be capable of sitting with the other boys instead of with his parents. Six-year-old Paul was drooping a bit, his head resting on Isaac's sleeve.

Judith's heart clenched, looking at Isaac's solemn face. She'd tried to stay awake until he came back to bed last night, but she'd nodded off after an hour or so, and she'd been berating herself for that since she woke.

Still, she couldn't convince herself that he'd have said anything more even if she had been awake. The little Isaac had said seemed to have been torn from him, probably by the fierce reminder of what had happened on his sixteenth birthday. No wonder he'd had a nightmare. Her heart actually ached, so that she longed to press her hand against it to ease the pain.

There had been no opportunity to speak to him alone this
morning, not in the rush to get all the chores done before they headed down the road for worship services. The kinder had been with them in the buggy, of course, and when they'd arrived they'd separated, she to go and join the women, greeting each one, while he did the same with the men.

She glanced at Joseph, in the front row with the other boys under the eyes of the entire congregation. He'd been proud when he'd been deemed old enough to sit away from the family. Like most mothers of boys in that group, she prayed he'd behave properly and not embarrass them.

Noah stirred restlessly at her side, and she patted him. It was hard for anyone to sit for three hours, and even adults had been known to doze off on a hot summer day. Noah had been playing with a piece of yarn and a handkerchief, but now he let the yarn drop to the floor.

Rebecca's daughter, Katie, bent to pick it up. With a quick smile at Noah, she began to weave the yarn into a cat's cradle. He stopped wiggling to watch, fascinated, and then grabbed for the yarn, clearly wanting to do it, too. With the patience of a big sister, Katie wound the yarn on his hand, guiding his small fingers in the movements. Above their heads, Judith exchanged smiles with Rebecca.

What would her cousin say, she wondered, if Judith told her about what had happened with Isaac last night? She wouldn't, of course. That was private between husband and wife. But if she did, somehow Judith knew what Rebecca's advice would be. The same advice she'd get from her mother or from Grossmammi. She could hear their voices in her head.

Geh lessa. Let it go. Let it be. Accept.

Judith sighed.
Gelassenheit
was at the root of most things
Amish, it seemed. To be yielded, to be surrendered, and to accept whatever happened as God's will.

She looked again at Isaac. It was ironic, in a way. Isaac obviously had never truly accepted the fire that had claimed his family. And she couldn't accept the barriers that had been placed between them.

And between him and Joseph? She groped her way to understanding, going over and over the few words Isaac had spoken as he'd come out of the dream. He blamed himself, thinking he should have gone for his father first instead of following the sound of crying. Probably that made him doubly determined to do what he thought his father would have wanted.

As for Joseph—what did he want? She'd had no chance yet to question him about the vocational course information Barbie had seen him take. She had to do that, and soon, before it came out in another family explosion.

The minister began the closing prayer. Judith slid down to kneel facing the bench, trying not to wake Noah, who'd fallen asleep with the yarn still wrapped around his fingers. But he stirred and muttered something and then seemed to realize where he was. Unprompted, he slid to his knees, bringing his hands together on the bench. The simple gesture warmed her heart. Why could she not just relax and trust in God, reflecting on how many blessings He had brought into her life?

But as they stood for the final hymn, her thoughts were already racing ahead. She had to find out what Joseph was up to. Knowing that she was failing in acceptance by trying to manage the situation herself, she ought to be asking forgiveness. Still, it was hardly being honest with God to ask forgiveness when she planned to do it anyway.